In the Spring of 2008, I went to my first music festival. Mountain Jam boasted a variety of jam bands and general hippie debauchery. It was a weekend filled with spontaneity, dancing and interesting encounters. But it's one encounter that sticks out clearly in my memory... my encounter with Robbie.
Robbie introduced himself on our first night at Hunter Mountain. He saw us cooking and offered conversation in exchange for company.
"Man, I got three bags of rice and a sheet of acid."
He was a completely festied out wook through and through. But what I remember even more clearly than his general dirty demeanor was the book he gave us to thumb through while he made his daily rounds through the festival.
It was called "Be Here Now," by Ram Dass. To make one long, trippy story short, Doctor Dass tells us all to live now, in this very moment.
The problem is, it's difficult to focus on now when you're living in the past and dreaming about the future. I know a number of my posts have been about the inevitable future that awaits us all but for those of you who are not graduating in a month, you have to understand that at this point in the game, it's the only thing that matters. Every aspect of my life somehow relates to my impending graduation, try as I might to ignore it. I can't help but feel an unbearable combination of excitement, nostalgia and flat-out fear at almost any given moment of the day.
However, with every day that graduation grows nearer, I find myself slightly more relaxed than the day before. I've stopped worrying about what is going to happen because it's going to happen whether I worry about it or not, so why worry?
Everyone around me seems consumed by finals and papers and graduating and blah, blah, BLAH.
Everyone, STOP. Take a minute to take a deep breath and look around.
Appreciate in this moment how awesome your life is right now.
When will you get to live like this again? You don't know. So enjoy it now!
Let school take the back seat in your life and just try to have some fun. As one of my good friends once asked me, while I was debating whether to stay in and be a good student or go to an otherwise sold out concert,
"In ten years, are you going to remember the test you have tomorrow or raging your face off at the show you could see tonight?"
To this day, I have no idea if it was even a test I had the following day... but I remember that Pretty Lights opened with I Know the Truth...
Cool post, there is nothing better than a festival post with summer right around the corner. This book sounds really awesome too, and I think it points out a very true perspective, that you can't get caught up in the past of future. And I can see that your friend convinced you and was right since you remember what Pretty Lights opened with. I've seen him a few times and he always opens with that song but then again it is soo good.
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